Bubble Wrap Turns 50 … Pop, Pop, Pop

And this month we mark the official 50th. birthday of Bubble Wrap. Which shouldn’t pass without mention. Although we should note that the product itself precedes the corporation it spawned by a few years. Details.

Bubble Wrap was created by two engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, in 1957. The term is a brand of Sealed Air Corporation (US) which was founded in 1960 by the two inventors, and thus should only be used for products of that company. Some people use the name generically for similar products, often termed air bubble packing or packaging; Sealed Air denotes its product as a brand of “cushioning material”

It also looks like Bubble Wrap is in the same category as Kleenex and Xerox, having become a generic term for a category. Details again.

Given it’s highly addictive properties (see the picture below) it must be a gateway drug to something else. But what?